Pope: Now’s the time to end indifference, ‘false neutrality’

Associated Press

January 1, 2016

Photo: Gregorio Borgia /Associated Press

Pope Francis desires a 2016 that will be better than 2015.

Pope Francis desires a 2016 that will be better than 2015.

VATICAN CITY — Wishing for a year better than 2015, Pope Francis on Friday called for an end to the “arrogance of the powerful” that relegates the weak to the outskirts of society, and to the “false neutrality” toward conflicts, hunger and persecution that triggers exoduses of refugees.

In his New Year’s homily, Francis emphasized the need to “let ourselves be reborn, to overcome the indifference which blocks solidarity, and to leave behind the false neutrality which prevents sharing.”

After celebrating Mass, the pope came to the window of a Vatican palazzo overlooking St. Peter’s Square to offer new year’s wishes to a crowd of tens of thousands of tourists and Romans cheering him from below.

“At the start of the year, it’s lovely to exchange wishes. Let’s renew, to one another, the desire that that which awaits us is a little better” than what last year brought, Francis said. “It is, after all, a sign of the hope that animates us and invites us all to believe in life.”

As he did in his homily earlier in St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope issued a caution that “the enemy of peace isn’t only war, but also indifference,” and he decried “barriers, suspicions, fears and closures” toward others.